Re­hab start has Kershaw good to go

Dodgers ace Clay­ton Kershaw is sched­uled to pitch Fri­day at Mi­ami af­ter spend­ing more than two months on the dis­abled list with a her­ni­ated disk.

Man­ager Dave Roberts said Kershaw won’t have a spe­cific pitch count, but the team will be look­ing at the big pic­ture with the play­offs com­ing up next month. The Dodgers lead the Na­tional League West by three games over the Gi­ants.

Kershaw dom­i­nated in his lone re­hab start at Class A Rancho Cu­ca­monga on Satur­day night. The left-han­der al­lowed only an in­field hit, struck out five and walked none. He threw 35 pitches in the game and an­other 15 in the bullpen to reach his 50-pitch limit.

“Clay­ton texted me a cou­ple of times and told me he’s ex­cited,” Roberts said Sun­day. “It will be a big lift for the guys.”

Kershaw’s im­pend­ing re­turn, along with Kenta Maeda start­ing Mon­day against the Di­a­mond­backs and two solid starts by Rich Hill, gives the Dodgers’ tat­tered ro­ta­tion a ma­jor boost.

“We can put our top three with any in base­ball, but it starts with Clay­ton,” Roberts said.

Kershaw was 11-2 with a 1.79 ERAbe­fore get­ting in­jured in late June.

Still on the dis­abled list are pitch­ers Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brett An­der­son, Scott Kazmir, Bran­don McCarthy and Alex Wood. An­der­son fol­lowed Kershaw in Satur­day’s game but was again both­ered by a blis­ter and was to meet Sun­day with the team’s med­i­cal staff.

Ryu ap­pears out for the sea­son due to a left el­bow in­jury. Wood could be back in a bullpen role.

McCarthy was to pitch Sun­day at Rancho Cu­ca­monga. Kazmir will start Wed­nes­day at Triple-A Ok­la­homa City, throw­ing six in­nings with a 90-pitch limit.